What If… a message from Chaya

What if there was a picture taken of the first love you had, perhaps the first sexual experience you had, the first sense of deep romantic love you held. You may see a cute guy or a beautiful girl and have a found memory of that picture. But the picture may not be quite so pretty. What if it showed you lost innocence, expectation, pressure? What if it showed abandonment, abuse, deceit?

What if the person pictured, this person you loved, harmed a key part of you that made you fear love? Would you run from intimacy itself because of this picture, run from closeness? Would you choose to relive this experience over and over again unconsciously hoping the outcome would be different? But it is always the same, the same relationship over and over again? Do you make it the same because that picture is the picture of romantic love? Is this picture your story?

And what if love finds you right now? Will you still see the picture even as you look at this new love? Will the picture be long faded in the past or will it still be fresh and bright as if it were taken yesterday? Will the picture block your view of the one who loves you and who you love in return? When you look at this person will you see through glasses clouded by this picture — the pain, the hurt, the betrayal of long ago? Will you clearly see the person in front of you? Will you use this picture to compare, to contrast, to validate why you cannot trust love, another, or anyone, even yourself?

Does this picture show you, you are not worth love? Does this picture show you how you can’t be loved? Does this picture show you how you never will be loved? Couldn’t be then, so why now? Does this picture show you what is real? Are you with that person still, living with the ghost of someone who hurt you? Are you still the person from then living the victim? Is this the same love as then or is it something new?

Look again at the picture, eyes wide open. The picture is old, the story is done. It ended long ago. That person in the picture is gone. That relationship is not here now. Time to let the picture go and its story. The suffering ends today. This is not the story of you, not today and not tomorrow, never again will it be. You don’t need it, do you? You get to make your life your own, your love your own right here, right now, today! Remove the picture from in front of your eyes and see. Think you can?